


Ink and Flowers (Sometimes Work Together)

by femmekoriandr



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Check Please - Freeform, Florist AU, M/M, Tattoo Shop AU, bitty has nipple piercings, i don't know anything about tattoo parlors :/, jack can't use words well, lardo is a bro, or flower shops, piercer!ransom, this is entirely self-indulgent, u kno i hopped on that train, unless the bee movie counts, who knows how many chapters im gonna do, zimbits - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2017-09-22
Packaged: 2018-09-19 15:01:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9446627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femmekoriandr/pseuds/femmekoriandr
Summary: Bitty is a tattoo shop co-owner. He's got a lot of tattoos and piercings, and a heart of gold. Jack is a florist that works with his best friend. He knows how to handle flower arrangements, but not his own emotions. Eventually, somehow, love happens.





	1. The First Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> Not gonna lie. This is entirely inspired by @zim-tits on tumblr because her tattoo au tag gives me life. Would definitely recommend you give it a look if you haven't already.
> 
> Anyway: If this goes well, I'll probably write a companion piece told from Jack's dumb POV. I don't actually know what I'm doing with this story yet lmao.
> 
> Disclaimer: Ink and Flowers (Sometime Work Together) is a work of fanfiction using characters from the ever amazing Ngozi comic, "Check, Please!" I have no claims of ownership to the characters. This is entirely my own work based off of her comic; I am not getting any profits from this work, nor do I wish to. If you haven't read the comic yet, please check it out because it's amazing. I sincerely appreciate Ngozi allowing her fans to write fics about her comic.

Eric Richard “Bitty” Bittle looked at the picture on his phone and felt a smile pull at his face. No matter how many times he did this, he always got that same giddy rush of emotions when he saw the final product. In the picture, his skin was slightly red around the edges of the design, and there was a shiny quality to it because of the vaseline. The tattoo, though? It was beautiful. It made his heart pound with happiness.

  
He pulled his eyes away from the phone and focused instead on the girl in front of him. She had a smug grin on, obviously satisfied with how it had turned out as well. She’d looked like that since before they were halfway through the sketch. Bitty reached out and flicked her nose with his finger to make the expression go away. It crinkled in response, making her look more adorable than frightening. Not that he would ever tell her that, because he respected her enough not to. And, well . . . he also respected having all of his body parts not in pain.

  
Lardo leaned back in her chair and took a sip of her frappuccino slowly. Her eyes were trained on Bitty, waiting. When she set the cup down on the counter, Bitty finally caved.

  
“Lards, I love it!” He could feel the heat in his cheeks; he was so pleased with the results that his face was flushed. “I never thought I would get a piece here, but it looks good.”

  
Lardo stretched her hands high over her head in an attempt to get the tension out of her back from hunching over earlier. “You say you love it now, but just wait until you have to get up from the couch, or go up the stairs. Then we’ll see how you feel about it.”

  
Bitty looked down at where the tattoo was, even though it was covered up by his loose (very, very loose) sweats. He knew it was there even though he couldn’t see it. Mostly because it throbbed slightly, but also because it was something he had been anticipating for a while. He still couldn’t believe he’d decided to do such a big, intricate piece. It traveled from right above his hip bone down to his mid-thigh. He knew that it was going to hurt for the first few days, and that the scabbing was going to be a bitch of itchy proportions. That hadn’t stopped him or delayed him from getting it, though.

  
He sighed. “I still can’t believe I did that all in one sitting.” He'd come so far with tattoos that it was wild to think about. Lord knows he couldn't have done that kind of tattoo in one session even a year ago.

  
Lardo was thinking along the same line, because she snorted. “I know,” she said. “You had to tap out of your first tattoo before it was even fully done.” She sniffed dramatically and wiped at a pretend tear. “My little baby’s growing up so fast. From a little circle on the arm to a seven hour monster of a piece. I’m so proud of you.”

  
Bitty shrugged, trying not to blush. “It was all you, sweetheart. As always.”

  
Before he could continue to gush about the tattoo, the bell rang, announcing the arrival of a potential customer. Bitty pushed himself out of the chair he was sitting in and fought back a groan. The numbing spray was starting to wear off already. With a slight limp because it hurt to do anything but keep his leg ramrod straight, like he was a penguin on one side only, he made his way to the front of the store. Walk-ins were usually always welcome, but Bitty, Lardo, and Freddy were the only ones in the store at the moment, and Freddy was just barely out of his apprentice stage. Not only that, but Bitty wasn’t even on shift right now; it was his day off.

  
On the other side of the front counter, there was a form hunched over, eyeing the artwork inside of the glass casing. Bitty stepped closer and forced his posture to be better. He was aware that he was wearing a crop top with loose sweatpants, and even though it was his off day and it was a tattoo shop, he still felt more messy than he would have liked to be around a stranger.

 

“Hi!” The figure just barely started, and Bitty plowed ahead. “Welcome to Bits. Is there anything that I can do for you today?”

  
Slowly, the person straightened. Bitty’s eyes met with glacial blue ones, and he had to physically stop himself from muttering “Sweet lord in Heaven” out loud. The guy’s jawline could cut glass. It could support a spouse and four kids without breaking a sweat, it was that strong. It was an effort to make himself stop gawking and smile at the guy in what he hoped was a friendly way and not a grimace.

  
The guy stared at him in silence. Bitty fought the desperate urge to squirm under his intense gaze. Finally, when it became too much, Bitty broke the look and instead assessed the guy as a whole. He was in pretty normal-looking clothes, if you ignored the way the t-shirt hugged his shoulders and chest. Oh, and the apron. There was that, too. Surprisingly, it looked good on him. Bitty, whose other passion was baking, was envious of anybody who could pull off an apron. Even if that someone looked slightly murderous.

  
Before the guy could glare at him any more (Bitty was fearing combustion at that point), Lardo came up from behind Bitty and made a noise of recognition. “Jack! Hey man, what are you doin’ here?”

  
Jack turned his attention to Lardo, and then he did something that Bitty wasn’t expecting. He rolled his eyes. An honest to god roll of the eyes. And then he opened his mouth and said, “Shitty won’t let me live.” That was it. Just “Shitty won’t let me live,” like it wasn’t vague at all.

  
Apparently, it _wasn’t_ as vague as it appeared, because Lardo laughed. “Yeah, he does that. How long has he been pushing it this time?”

  
“What?” Jack appeared to pull back from some lost thought and focused on Lardo again. “Oh. About a year now, I think.”

  
Bitty realized at that exact moment that Jack was Canadian. Not even subtly so. His accent was so strong that he reminded Bitty of the moose brothers from Brother Bear. It sounded fake. Not that Bitty could really say anything about accents, of course. As dubbed by Lardo, his Georgian accent was still so present that his friends had started a tally of how many times in one conversation he’d say “y’all.” And the moment Bitty said anything about blessing someone’s heart, cold hard fear showed on their faces.

  
His friends were smart.

  
Lardo nodded sagely and then started the process of talking about what Jack was looking to get and when he was looking to get it. Jack didn’t seem all that excited about it, but then again, Jack hadn’t seemed all that excited about anything since he’d walked into the shop. They guesstimated pricing on his piece, Lardo began a loose sketch, and Bitty stood there. Watching. Confused.

  
Attracted.

  
Jack was attractive. Even Bitty had to admit it. Sure, he was kind of standoffish. And yeah, he didn’t really seem like the best conversationalist. But sometimes, if Lardo cracked a joke that pushed the right button, his lips would twitch and his eyes would light up. And the amount of “eh”s in his vocabulary were endearing. He used them for everything. And occasionally, when he was in the middle of a sentence, or he was listening to Lardo, his eyes would flick over to Bitty. And they’d make eye contact again. And Bitty would briefly forget the dull, aching pain in his right side.

  
When Jack finally left the store, seemingly satisfied and (probably) happy, he glanced back one last time and stared at Bitty briefly. When he was gone, Bitty felt all his breath leave his body in a great big whoosh, and he slid down the closest wall, feeling slightly overheated. Had Jack liked him? Hated him? Was he straight? Was he not? Was he even a nice guy? Lardo had seemed to like him, and that was always a good sign, right? Would Bitty even be in the shop on the day that his appointment had been made? Would they ever have a real conversation? Could they ever be friends?

  
But then he bent his right leg a specific way, and all thoughts swept away. Lardo laughed for a solid ten minutes at Bitty’s shocked, “Sweet mother of all that is holy!”


	2. One Month Later

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is significantly longer than the first chapter lol.
> 
> Warning: slightly detailed process of piercing nipples about halfway through. Mostly because that's the only process I've ever personally been through with piercings. Oops.
> 
> another s/o to ashton (zim-tits) for making this lovely tattoo au. i used it as insp a lot for this chapter, and i'm going to use it even more next chapter as we truly and genuinely meet a lot of the smh crew and see their au selves

A few weeks later, Bitty was finishing his last appointment of the day. It had been a fairly simple piece, all black, and it took not even an hour to complete. He walked the customer through the payment process and then asked if he could take a picture of the tattoo for courtesy's sake. They agreed, he got the photo, and then he reiterated once again the care process for the tattoo as it healed. They left with a slightly dazed look on their face, which is what usually happened for first-timers. Bitty had done the same thing his first time. And his second and third time.

  
Finally, Bitty made himself sit down on the loveseat that was near the front of the store and heaved a sigh. His day had been mostly full of people, and his back was beginning to ache. Not only that, but it was starting to get cold in the shop and he was wearing shorts, which had sounded like a good choice at the time but was now full of regret.

  
Lardo came out from the office and plopped down next to him. She swung her feet up and put them on his lap, the laces from her boots tickling his skin. Bitty shifted to make both of them more comfortable.

  
"All done for the day?" she asked lowly. Lardo got gradually quieter as the day wore on, especially if she'd had a lot of customers. Bitty made his own voice mimic her tone so as not to bother her more. He knew she got overstimulated sometimes.

  
With a shrug, he leaned back into the cushions. "That was my last appointment for the day, if that's what you mean." He looked over at her and smiled softly at her exhausted look. "Oh, honey. How many more do you have?”

  
Lardo let out a long, drawn out groan. "One more.” Bitty sympathized with her. It was a Saturday, and they'd were always busy for their Saturday shifts. Bitty may not have any more appointments, but there was at least going to be one guaranteed walk-in, because that always happened. Bitty was certified to handle both tattoos and piercings at this point, as was Lardo. Since they had opened the shop together, they were usually the most in demand. Lardo was amazing with detail and she handled big pieces like a pro. Bitty was good at line work and he could do fonts like it was nobody's business. As a team, they kind of ruled.

  
They’d had two more guys working in their shop that day. Ransom was solely a piercer. People loved him. He made friends with all of his customers, but maintained a solid, professional reputation as well. And Nursey had been there for a while, too, though Bitty didn’t know if he still was. He was a guy who preferred to work at the café down the street that served both coffee and poetry readings. Sometimes, though, he would pop in and handle any big watercolor pieces, because that was his _thing_. Technically, he was an employee at Bits, but he worked around his own schedule and Bittle and Lardo usually let him. He was reliable when he was asked to be, and he'd apprenticed just for the hell of it at a shop that was obnoxiously prestigious, so he had the credentials required to do what they asked of him. Plus, as was stated before: Derek Nurse was one hell of a watercolor artist.

  
Bitty nudged her gently in the calf and asked her when her next appointment was. Lardo checked the time on her phone and then groaned again.

  
"In five minutes." She rubbed at her forehead and then pulled her hand away and thumped her head back. "At least I like this guy. That's a bonus."

  
Bitty nodded enthusiastically. Tattooing friends made the process go a little more smoothly, in his opinion. He even liked it when people brought their friends along. It made everyone loosen up a little more. Plus, Bitty grew up on Southern charm. He could get even the hardiest, most stoic guys to talk to him. Usually. Jack apparently didn’t count.

  
And then, as if he'd been conjured, the bell jingled loudly, and both Bitty and Lardo looked up to see him walk in. He stared down at them without a single change in his expression. Bitty, who'd been feeling drowsy, suddenly jolted wide awake. _Jack was back_. It had been around a month since the last time they'd seen each other, and Bitty had been quietly brooding over the guy since then, not that he would willingly admit it to anyone. He'd handled the brooding fine. Sure, he'd baked a lot more than usual, and he'd taken on more appointments than he normally would have. Bittle stood by those thing having nothing to do with the fact that Jack had never once said a word to Bitty in the near-hour that he had been in his shop. There was absolutely no correlation.

  
Before Bitty could open his mouth to greet him, Lardo pulled her feet off his lap and sprang up. For how small she was, she was surprisingly speedy. The warmth that Bitty had been sneakily sucking from her was gone in an instant, and goosebumps scattered across his legs.

  
"Yo, Jack." Lardo leaned into him and gave him a quick hug. To Bitty's surprise, Jack returned it, because apparently Jack knew how to return bro hugs now. "We'll finish the design and then get it ready to go, yeah?"

  
Jack nodded and followed behind her like a puppy as she headed for the front counter. There was a computer set up there, and she'd already worked on sketching most of the piece out before Jack had showed up. It was a fairly detailed piece, made up of geometric patterns. It had looked like a flower the last time Bitty had seen it. He couldn't help but wonder where, exactly, it would be placed on Jack.  
After they polished the final design, it was moved to transfer paper. Lardo began to usher Jack over to one of the private rooms where the process could begin, and Bitty had to refrain from doing anything stupid, like trailing behind them and hovering. He was curious, but he had self-control. Mostly. They both disappeared inside, and the door clicked shut.  
  


Before he could truly dwell over Jack any more, a flock of teenagers walked into his shop. They were animated and laughing, and Bitty’s face morphed into a wide grin. He loved cheerful groups. They made his job worth it.  
  


“Hi there!” Bitty headed over to them and leaned against the counter. “Welcome to Bits. What can I do for y’all today?”  
  


A person in the back tried to subtly nudge the one in the front forward. They went easily enough, but still managed to shoot Bitty a chagrined smile. The entire group explained that the one in the front wanted nipple piercings, and Bitty nodded.  
  


“Alrighty then,” he said. He started to pull papers out and slid them over the counter. He tossed a pen on top of them. “Before we can do anything, I need you to sign these papers and show me your I.D. Try to be as honest as possible.”  
  


The person hastily filled out the papers and personal information, and put their I.D. on top of them to give back to him. Bitty took it and read over everything before being satisfied. He led the group to a room, feeling slightly like a mother duck as they all followed behind him.  
  


Through the beginning stages of the piercing process where the girl had to strip her top half and Bitty took a marker to her skin, he kept up a steady stream of conversation with the kids. There were three, and they revealed that they were all girls who had gone to the same school. They seemed close to each other and happy to be there. The one getting pierced was named Jen, and she was the quietest of them all. It was let loose that the other two girls had already gotten their nipples pierced, but that Jen had to save up for it before she could. Each girl had different experiences with the piercing process.  
  


Bitty rolled his eyes good-naturedly at their dramatic stories and sent Jen to the mirror to asses the markings. She chose her favorite setup, he made her lay down, and then Bitty got to work.  
  


In order to distract her as he situated the clamp, he rambled. He was good at it, like any natural-born Southerner. He told her about how he’d actually recently gotten his nipples piercings done two months beforehand, and how they were still healing. Not that he was going to tell the girl, but it had hurt like a mother. He also would never admit that sometimes, when he was in the shower and he got too into his singing and dancing instead of focusing on his loofah, or he got too careless stretching over something to grab an item, he swore his life briefly flashed before his eyes. Instead, he mentioned that the healing process for nipple piercings was long and annoying but ultimately, to him, worth it. He asked her about her life, her school, her pastimes. All her friends pitched in with answers as well.  
  


Then he gave her the warning, had her breathe, and the first needle went through. Bitty winced in sympathy when she made a loud, pained noise of surprise. Bitty remembered that exact moment from when he’d gotten his done. He finished sliding the actual piercing through and screwed on the ball.  
  


“How you feelin’, hon?” Her eyes were staring up at the ceiling, but he wasn’t sure if she was actually looking at it or processing the pain. She waved him off. He decided to give her a bit of a break and instead turned to her friends as he got everything ready for the second piercing.  
  


One of her friends was filming. When Bitty raised an eyebrow at her, she shrugged and said, “It’s a tradition. We’ve done it for everyone else.”  
  


Bitty snorted and then turned back to Jen.  
  


The second piercing went much smoother than the first, and before he knew it, she was back to herself as she looked in the mirror at the finished product. She opted out of putting her bra back on, even though Bitty told her that the support actually helped. The group paid and were on their merry way, after strict care instructions from him. At some point, Ransom came out from where he’d been hiding and asked what they’d gotten done. When Jen told him, he gave her a fist bump and a proud smile and then promptly disappeared into the back of the shop again. After they’d left, Bitty felt almost rejuvenated, in a way. He was good at getting his energy from other people, and those girls had been brimming with it.  
  


Shortly after the nipple piercing group had left, Lardo and Jack resurfaced. Bitty heard their footsteps approach and turned to greet them with a smile, only to be socked in the face by the beautiful, amazing, astounding sight that was Jack shirtless.  
  


Lardo was ahead of Jack and she leaned into Bitty and said quietly, so that no one but him could hear her, “You’re drooling, bro.”  
  


Even though he knew it was a lie, Bitty honestly wouldn’t have put drooling past himself just then. Don’t get him wrong, he knew how to handle half-naked guys. He’d spent years in locker rooms with them. He tattooed and pierced anywhere people asked him to. Hell, he’d seen plenty of fully naked guys. More specifically, naked guys that wanted to do naked activities with him. Much as his mother wished he was, he wasn’t a saint. But Jack’s body was on a whole other realm. For a guy who had worn an apron the last time Bitty had seen him, he sure did cut a nice build. A really, really nice build. With an 8-pack. And that V-shaped thingy that disappears into the waistband of pants.  
  


Bitty was staring really hard. When he realized this, he felt his face burst into flames and he tore his gaze away. It wasn’t unusual for guys to opt out of putting their shirts back on when they took a break during the process, especially if they were getting a large piece done. None of them had been Jack, though.  
  


Bitty tried to act as casual and unaffected as he could manage. He leaned against the counter and pulled his phone out of his pocket for something to fiddle with. When he made eye contact with Jack, Bitty asked, “So how’s it looking so far?”  
  


Jack’s shoulders hunched up at the sentence, and then slowly unwound. Without saying anything, he turned around to show off the progress.  
  


It was a beautiful tattoo. The piece traveled between his shoulder blades down to his lower back. The flowers, though geometric, were still breathtakingly realistic looking. There were a couple of them, and as they reached higher up his back, they went from being closed tight to beginning to bloom. None of them appeared to be fully bloomed, not even in the transferred design that hadn’t been inked yet, but there were some that reached pretty darn close to it. Bitty had no idea what kind of flowers they were supposed to be, but he could sense a meaning behind it. He itched to know what it was, but knew it wasn’t any of his business to ask.  
  


Instead, he let out a low whistle. “Goodness, Lards. You really outdid yourself with this one.”  
  


The smug look was back on her face again; Bitty didn’t have to look at her to know it was there. Jack’s back was still facing them, so they couldn’t see his expression, but if Bitty were him, he would be feeling pretty content right about now.  
  


Finally, Jack turned back around, once again not saying anything. Bitty wondered if Lardo had been sitting in silence for the whole two or so hours that she had been tattooing him. Jack didn’t seem to know how to keep a conversation going. Sometimes Bitty got customers like that, but he knew how to talk enough for two people. Lardo wasn’t like that, and so Bitty worried for her.  
  


But then Lardo finished off her water bottle, dropped it in the trashcan, and made her way back to the room. To Jack, she said, “Let’s go, bro.” Jack took one more look at Bitty, glowered, and then went back in as well. Bitty blinked at the closed door in confusing. Why did Jack always look so angry at him? Had he done something to make him upset?  
  


Bitty decided to not simmer on it and got on with the rest of his work so that he could leave without any work looming over his head.

 

***

 

Finding out that Jack worked as a florist was a shock to Bitty’s entire system.  
  


“I wear it when I’m at my job. It’s just down the street,” Jack had grumbled when Bitty had finally gotten around to asking him why he was wearing the apron the other time. Honestly, what Bitty did to the poor guy was closer to cornering him, but when he had passed the door of the room they’d been in earlier, he’d heard two different voices talking. It had sounded like a real, honest to goodness conversation between Lardo and Jack, which obviously meant that Bitty was now determined to make Jack talk to him. Even if he had to do it when Lardo disappeared into the back office to settle something.  “It’s called Knight’s. My friend’s family owns it. It’s a- it’s a flower shop.”  
  


Bitty felt like glowing. “So you’re a florist, huh?” He reached up and pulled at the collar of his shirt so that his shoulder could be more visible. “I got this piece done awhile ago because I think that flowers are really pretty. They actually go farther down than I can show you right now, but isn’t it beautiful? Lardo did it for me, of course. She’s just the sweetest thing.”  
  


When Jack didn’t respond, Bitty looked up from his shoulder and saw that he’d averted his gaze and was very avidly _not_ staring at Bitty. It sort of hurt. Jack made Bitty feel like he was a bumbling dummy who couldn’t handle even the simplest things like a small conversation. Jack made Bitty feel like he was an annoyance.  
  


Not one to give up easily, Bitty tried again. “So your friend, the one that you work with. Is that the Shitty guy that you’d mentioned last time?”  
  


Jack took a deep breath and looked back at him. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s him. He’s been pushing me to get a tattoo for a really long time.”  
  


“Oh, so you finally gave in then, huh?” Bitty smiled at him. “Well, you made a good choice, choosing Lardo to do it. She’s very good at her job.”  
  


“Hey, Bits?” Lardo called from the back. Bitty perked up and excused himself from Jack briefly to peek his head into the office. Lardo was sprawled out on couch that they had snuck in for naps. She beckoned him close to her just to whisper, “Is he finally talking to you?”  
  


Bitty pulled back and felt his cheeks go red. He gently whacked Larissa over the head. “He was, until you called me away!” Taking hold of her hand, he hauled her body up. “Now come on, you fiend. You still haven’t made him pay or talked him through proper care. It’s time to do your job so that we can close up.”  
  


Lardo rolled her eyes but followed him back out anyway, greeting Jack cheerfully. Jack paid and got the typical aftercare spiel from Lardo. Occasionally, if Bitty felt like something was really important to stress, he would nod along and make a noise in agreement. Jack listened intently, like he was scared that they would make him repeat everything back to them word for word. Once everything was done and settled, he went to leave, looking a little bit dazed. Like every other first timer.  
  


Caught on the thought that Jack was like everyone else, even if just barely, Bitty called after him. “Did you say that the flower shop was down the street?”  
  


Jack paused and looked over his shoulder. He nodded once. When pushed for where it was exactly, he said, “Right next to the cafe.”  
  


And then, because Bitty doesn’t know when to stop, he blurted out, “I’ll have to stop by sometime, then.” He snapped his mouth shut, regretting the words instantly. That was more forward than he’d intended it to be, and Jack seemed to be more like a skittish cat than any real cat that Bitty had ever met was.  
  


Jack stared at him blankly for another moment and then nodded. He made his way out of the door and down the street, and though Bitty was still burning with embarrassment, he thought that this was proof that he might actually make some progress with Jack. Eventually.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next up on: when will this story leave the tattoo parlor? the world may never know.
> 
> (it's next chapter)
> 
> hope you guys enjoyed. this is kind of edited but in a really half-assed i'm tired way. remind me to come back later to fix any outstanding mistakes.
> 
> so anyway: JACK FINALLY TALKED TO BITTY. THE DUMB BOY FINALLY MANAGED TO TALK TO BITTY. I'm proud of my anxiety son. He's making progress.


	3. Three Days Later . . .

When Bitty ran into Jack again, it actually wasn’t at the flower shop,  _ or _ the tattoo parlor. Instead, it was at one of the several coffee spots on the street they all frequented.  _ Lingering Coffee _ was, in Bitty’s honest opinion, the best place to get coffee in the area out of all of them. It might have had something to do with their willingness to make drinks sweet enough to rot out a weaker man’s teeth, or maybe even the array of pastries they had on display every single day. (They weren’t as good as Bittle’s treats, but they were certainly good enough when he didn’t actually have time to make his own.) Or maybe, it was made great simply because of the fact that one of the workers there was none other than Derek “Nursey” Nurse, coffee maker/poet extraordinaire.

Either way, Bitty found himself frequenting the coffee shop much more than he would like to admit. When he wasn’t sending Lardo to get his coffee for him, he was fetching it himself in a feeble attempt to take a breather from his many responsibilities. So it was no surprise to anyone that Bitty found himself in line to order on that chilly Tuesday morning.

The surprise, as was always the case when it came to this particular man, was Jack Zimmermann. 

Bitty didn’t think much of it when someone took the spot behind him in line. He didn’t even look up from his phone, where he was chirpily replying to one of his fan’s tweets at him. He didn’t actually know what they were a fan of; it could very well have been of his baking (he had just opened up another bakery that very year, that he visited semi-regularly to check on), or of his artwork (on top of him owning and working part-time at Bit’s, he took commissions and drew his own comics that were, for some reason, outrageously popular), or of his vlogs (which frequented from updates on his life, new recipes he was just dying to try, or the occasional half-bitter, half-whiny rant about surly, cute straight guys he bumped into sometimes). No matter the cause though, their tweet was hilarious, and Bitty felt it only right to shoot them an equally as witty reply. It took him a good minute to think of, but by the time it was to his satisfaction, he was quietly giggling to himself.

Which is why he absolutely was  _ not  _ prepared for Jack to wryly ask, “You okay there, Bittle?” In fact, he was so not prepared that he nearly jumped out of his own skin. Heart pounding, he whipped around and, without thinking about his actions, whacked Jack on the arm with a huff and then froze almost comically in horror. In case it wasn’t clear, Eric Richard Bittle, in all his dumb glory, whacked  _ Jack Zimmermann  _ on the  _ arm.  _ He’d talked to the poor man maybe twice in his life, and he was already assaulting him. Foreshadowing?

If there was a higher power, Bittle hoped more than anything that he would be stricken dead before his blush could fully reach the tips of his ears. Unfortunately, nothing of the sort happened; instead, he was left standing in the middle of a coffee shop with enough mortification to power a skyscraper for several months.

His mother would be appalled.

“Oh, gosh!” Bitty finally cried. His face was red. He could feel it. “I’m so sorry. I have absolutely no idea what came over me. Are you okay?” He went to reach for Jack’s arm, faltered halfway there, and then hastily let his hands drop back to his side. His phone was still clutched in the right one, screen dimmer but still on the tweet that didn’t seem so funny anymore.

Jack, surprisingly, simply shrugged and gave a small smile. At least, Bitty was pretty sure it was a smile. It might have been a hallucination from his embarrassment. Too much blood rushing to his head too quickly, and all that. Before he could do anything else to make him want to cry in his bed later, the person at the counter finished their lengthy order, and suddenly it was Bitty’s turn. Given the fact that it was the turning of the seasons from summer to winter, he greatly took advantage of the marketing everyone fell prey to and ordered their sweetest pumpkin-spiced drink, with extra whipped cream and cinnamon. He couldn’t be certain, but he was pretty sure he heard Jack made a disgusted sound from behind him. The worker seemed to want to mimic it, but they just barely refrained.

Bitty paid and then stepped aside while he waited for his drink to be made. To his delight, Nursey was the one in charge of making it. Every time he went to do something, Bitty gleefully called out to him.  _ Make sure you put exactly one-and-a-half teaspoons of cinnamon in it! No more, no less. Oh no, honey! No, no, no! Derek Malik Nurse, I know you’re not skimping me on the whipped cream, now. _

Nursey took it all in stride, only fondly rolling his eyes when he handed Bitty his drink. He cupped his hands around it and hummed into the rim of it as he took a sip. It was perfect, but Bitty’d had no actual doubt about that. He checked the time on his phone and realized that he was ahead of schedule. He gladly clutched his drink, hooked his laptop bag higher on his shoulder, and settled into one of the booths in the shop. He couldn’t believe he had free time, but he was glad he did. He set up his laptop, pulled his iPad Pro out, and was almost able to forget about Jack Zimmermann standing a couple feet away, waiting for his own drink.

Bitty was part of the way into a warm-up sketch when Jack took the bench across from him and cleared his throat. Bitty ignored the heat crawling up his neck again when he risked looking up at him. He couldn’t quite hold eye contact, but Jack didn’t seem to mind. There was that smile again. Small, and somewhat uncomfortable, but still breathtaking.

“So, uh . . . is your name really Bitty?” Jack braced his elbows on the table, and the steam from his mug (of course he got a  _ mug _ ) wafted in front of his face. It looked like the question was forced out of him. Bitty genuinely couldn’t tell if the man was unhappy all the time, or just cripplingly anti-social. Something made him think it was the latter.

Happy to help him along, Bitty laughed and said, “No! My first name is actually Eric. People call me several different things, depending on what parts of my life they’re from.”

Jack took the bait easily enough. “What else do you go by?”

“Well,” Bitty drawled. “Let’s see. My mother calls me Dicky. My middle name is Richard, in case you were wondering. My father mostly calls me Eric, actually. Lardo calls me Bitty, from when we met in college. It comes from my last name, Bittle. Bitty is the result of the guys who used to play hockey in the same rink that I practiced in. Fellows in hockey have this habit of giving anything that breathes a nickname. Bitty stuck the most out of all the nicknames I’ve been given. It’s almost more natural for me to be called that than it is for me to be called Eric, now.”

Jack blinked at him, and then reared back slightly. “You played hockey?”

Bitty laughed. “I can play it, yes. I played it for a couple years in college, never seriously, but I much prefer figure skating. There’s less checking involved.”

As if the day couldn’t get any weirder, Jack chose to make it worse by laughing. Bitty had to subtly pinch himself to make sure he hadn’t actually gotten his wish to die, because that laugh was like a little slice of heaven in the form of a 6’1’’ Canadian florist with an  _ unfair _ shoulder-to-waist ratio. He wanted to bask in the sound of it, but it was too short for him to do so. Instead, Bitty found himself staring at Jack in what was probably apparent awe. He’d thought the smile he’d been given before was stunning? He was a fool. A damned fool who didn’t know  _ anything _ .

The silence stretched on for longer than Bitty was used to with people, but he didn’t try to break it. He didn’t know what to do at all, honestly. Should he go back to his tablet? Refill his drink? Tell Jack more facts about himself that were useless? Leave and seclude himself away forever? Before he worried himself into a frenzy, Jack interrupted his thoughts. He seemed to be very good at doing that, for a man of so few words.

“I actually play hockey.” He stopped, scratched his head, and then muttered, “Played. I played hockey, for a really long time.”

“Oh, yeah?” Bitty grinned at him, trying to get him to open up more. If the only things that came out of him being raised in Georgia were his baking skills and his southern charm, then his life was better than most. “Did you play for any teams I might know?”

“I used to play for the, uh. The Falconers? The Providence Falconers. For a while, after college.” He grimaced, but Bitty was still smiling.

“I know that team!” he said excitedly. “I mean, I don’t keep up with hockey the way that a lot of people who played hockey normally do, but I know the names of some of the more important teams out there.” Bitty almost opened his mouth to ask Jack why he stopped playing, but figured if Jack wanted him to know, he would have told him already. He kept the question to himself, and swiftly changed the subject.

“Anywho! I’ve never seen you in Lingering before. What brings you to this little gift on Earth?”

Jack looked uncomfortable again. Bitty had no idea why, but he regretted opening his mouth nonetheless. It was probably his fault. Jack never looked nearly this uncomfortable when Lardo talked to him, so it was clearly Bitty causing it, and wasn’t  _ that  _ a comforting thought. Because he most certainly was not uncomfortable around Jack; he actually much preferred having him around. But only if he wanted to be around, of course. Bitty didn’t want to force himself on the boy if he was unwilling.

As he went to open his mouth to change the subject again, Jack spoke. He said, “I just heard that it had a nice atmosphere, is all.” Bitty took it for the deflection it obviously was and nodded. Sadly, when he looked at the clock on his computer, it was time for him to get back to the parlor and prepare for one of his bigger appointments of the day. With an apologetic smile while he hastily shoved all his belongings back in his bag, he (bitterly) excused himself from Jack and headed off to continue his life as normal.

It was a kind of silly comparison, but he felt somewhat like Cinderella fleeing from her prince. Except Cinderella lost something the prince could hold onto and cherish, while all Bitty had lost was his dignity.

Close enough, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i disappeared for quite a while there, huh? guess i'm a fic writer to the core, then! anyway, i'm sorry for not updating in so long! it's been almost nine whole months since i posted chapter two! at some point in that amount of time, i considered making this a oneshot instead of a chapter story, but unfortunately, i'm not the cool, and i like leaving things with witty "cliffhangers" in order to get the readers involved. or whatever other pretentious excuse i can come up with to excuse the fact that i haven't ever written a oneshot longer than 10k before.
> 
> anyway! things speed up from here. did you guys like them interacting? i most certainly did! they're both awful!! i love them!!!!! also, bitty still hasn't been to the flower shop. hmmmm........... weird ;)
> 
> i'm not trying to make this a monster fic or anything, but the story takes me where it wishes. it could be as small as five chapters (which i doubt) or as big as a 100k fic (also! doubtful bc my attention span is suuuuper bad). it's a mystery to all of us right now, actually. i'll sit down and plan it out to the best of my abilities after i post this. hopefully chapter 4 won't take another nine months for me to write lmao. thank you so much for reading this far!


	4. . . . And Then Some More

Bitty should have seen this coming. He really, truly should have.

After the initial coffee shop incident, Jack was  _ everywhere _ . When Bitty was in town during his tattoo parlor days (usually Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays), it was like Jack was a ghost set on haunting him. Not that it was a necessarily bad thing, but it most certainly was jarring to go from seeing him once every few months to engaging with him multiple times in the same  _ week. _

When he stopped in the farmer’s market for natural ingredients to implement in his baking (and to see Dex, who always had the in with the best honey), Jack was there, comparing . . . zucchini? Bitty didn’t get a good look at the booth he was at before Jack wandered over to Dex’s stand. He was surprisingly knowledgeable about raising bee colonies ethically, and had an in depth conversation with William about it. Bitty was in awe. He didn’t think that honeybee knowledge could be attractive, and yet he still managed to find himself in a daze by the end of it.

He was at the coffee shop every morning. Sometimes he sat with Bitty in silence; sometimes, if he was lucky, they talked a little. Only on days where Bitty’s schedule wasn’t too hectic, though. Not only that, but Jack popped into the parlor several times to carry messages to Lardo from Shitty, who was apparently too busy with flowers to do it himself. At the end of the first week of this happening, Jack even enquired Bitty about getting another tattoo. Smaller, with harsher line work. Something black and white with font.

Bitty didn’t know what to think.

Perhaps the strangest thing was when he bumped into Jack, literally, that next Monday. Bitty wasn’t even supposed to be in town that day (he had an interview with a smaller home magazine about his apparent rising fame in the baking world later that day that was an hour away), but it was nearing the end of September. The Boston weather was getting chillier, the days were getting shorter, the leaves were turning, and Halloween was only a month away. The area all the shops were located was actually just a glorified brick street; historic enough to attract tourists, but up-to-date enough to have plazas, though they tended to avoid that word around the area in order to keep the magic alive. Essentially, the buildings went down both sides of the road, and if they weren’t connected physically, they were pretty darn close to it.

On the quaint little street of theirs was a year-long Halloween store, stuffed almost to the brim with costumes and decorations and the like. Other than Lingering Coffee, it was probably Bitty’s favorite place. And he was due a costume for that year, though he hadn’t the faintest idea what he was going as, yet.

When he turned the corner with a piece clutched in his hands and jolted himself against Jack without meaning to, the apology that slipped out of his mouth was without thought and only half sincere. If anything, Jack should have been apologizing to Bitty for not only scaring the  _ bejeezus _ out of him, but also for physically hurting him with the force of the rebound off of his brick wall of a chest. But his mother raised him right, so he kept those thoughts to himself. It was easy enough, what with his mouth being too busy gaping to say anything stupid.

Jack gave a hasty smile. “Hey, Bitty.” His hand went to the back of his neck and rubbed in obvious discomfort.

Bitty finally pulled himself together enough to greet him with a “Hi, Jack!” Before he could ask why the taller boy was there, someone bounded up behind him and clapped their hands loudly on Jack’s shoulders. 

“Brah, I think I found the perfect costuuuume- Well, hello there.” The man looked between Jack and Bitty and then swiftly stepped around his friend to stick out his hand in greeting. “I’m Shitty. You must be Bitty?”

Bitty took the hand and gave it a couple shakes before letting go. “That would be me,” he chirped. The infamous Shitty Knight was standing right in front of him. Bitty quickly pasted a smile on his face, despite the pounding in his chest. “It’s very lovely to meet you, finally! You’re friends with Larissa, right?”

Shitty grinned widely when he said, “Lardo’s my bro, dude.” He looked behind him and nudged Jack with his elbow. “So is this mess right here, for that matter.”

Jack nudged him back a little more harshly, and Shitty let out a booming laugh. Bitty would never have imagined that the ever-serious Jack Zimmermann would be friends with a guy like Shitty Knight (he seemed like the kind of guy to be in a frat, honestly), but they read as if they knew exactly what the other person was thinking before there were even any signs of those thoughts. Jack’s eyes were softer when Shitty spoke. It was a good look for him. Bitty felt his chest clench a little at the thought of Jack looking at him like that, and then he promptly scolded himself for the thought.

Eric Richard Bittle may have been a lot of things, but he could never be accused of being straight, that was for damn sure.

“We’d better get going, Shitty,” Jack said hurriedly. Bitty wondered absently as to why his voice seemed to have a heavier accent to it than it normally did, but didn’t hover on the thought too much. He was sure that his own accent got heavier sometimes as well, for various reasons. Jack’s eyes flickered between Bitty and Shitty insistently, before settling on Bitty once more. “It was nice seeing you, eh?”

Before he could utter anything more than slight noise of agreement, Shitty tsked and then took yet another step closer to Bitty. “Nah, we’re not in that much of a hurry, dude.” He looked at the costume clutched in Bitty’s hand and smiled even wider. “What’s that?”

Bitty blinked, and then also looked down at the costume with a grimace. “Actually,” he said, “I’m not too sure.” He sighed and hastily scrubbed a hand through his hair in frustration. “I wanted to ask Johnson about other costumes they might have in hiding, but he seems to never be anywhere in-store whenever I look for him.”

Shitty nodded sagely, as if he understood completely. Bitty wasn’t sure he did, unfortunately. Bitty was a grown man about to turn twenty-eight, for goodness sake, but he was still too small to fit most of the pre-made adult costumes held in the store. He usually only looked in Halloween shops for ideas, at that point in his life.

When he told the other men this, Shitty nodded again, but Jack’s brow furrowed in thought. “Are you looking for anything in particular?”

“Not anything specifically, no.” He looked down the aisle they were in, and then resisted groaning. Nothing was good enough, and he had to be leaving soon if he wanted to make the interview in time. “I’ll have a costume by Halloween, though. Mark my words. Even if I have to give Lardo the reigns.”

“Dude,  _ no,” _ Shitty said in distress. Bitty arched an eyebrow in a silent question, and Shitty coughed. “I mean- I just- it’s just that. . .”

Jack spoke up smoothly, humor tinged in his voice. “It’s just that Shitty and Lardo made a bet about you letting her choose your costume, and he doesn’t want to lose.”

Shitty smacked Jack over the head good-naturedly, and then turned pleading eyes on Bitty. It was as if he was begging Bitty not to go to Larissa. Bitty smiled at him reassuringly, put the costume back on a shelf, and then turned to leave.

“Well, I guess that settles that, then,” he said as he took several steps away from them. The sliding doors opened as he walked onto the pressure plates, and he knew his smile turned sharp when he turned to meet their eyes. “Lardo’s picking my costume this year. Goodbye, Mr. Shitty. It was great seeing you again, Jack!”

He exited the store cackling, to the sound of Shitty’s outraged cry. He was pretty sure he heard the start of Jack chuckling, and then the doors closed behind him.

 

***

 

It wasn’t that Bitty was a malicious person. He was often told he was too nice. Southern charm, and all that. It was more along the lines that he knew for a fact that Shitty and Lardo were already in a month-long prank war to end all other prank wars, and Bitty had  _ loyalty. _ When he told Lardo the next day what he’d done at the costume shop, she’d laughed so hard she’d had to sit down and put her head between her legs to calm down. And when Shitty popped into the parlor (surprisingly without Jack in tow, this time), he assured Bitty that he’d found it hilarious.

And then he’d looked him dead in the eyes and promised revenge. The threat was slightly less intimidating than it would have been had he not had that ridiculous mustache on his face. It probably also didn’t help that his gaze had wandered slightly to the left, where Bitty’s freshly made mini-pies were sitting for sale, and promptly ordered  _ five _ . He said some of them were for Jack, but Bitty watched him eat three of them over the duration of his stay, so he had some doubts about any of them lasting long enough to be given to Jack. Maybe he should just stop by the flower shop and hand deliver some to Jack. He certainly had better control than Shitty when it came to food, it seemed.

He made a small reminder in the back of his mind, and then the bell jingled over the door and he stood up to welcome his next appointment of the day with a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This a filler chapter! I never thought I would say that, but I actually had to make a filler chapter. it's not even 2k words long, because i'm a disgrace, but i wanted to have a smoother transition into the more pinnacle parts of this story that are coming up.
> 
> up next: halloween!


End file.
